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Old 26-05-2010, 13:34   #75
JimW
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Join Date: May 2010
Posts: 2
JimW is an unknown quantity at this point
Re: B&Q Satellite - Ross freesat box and dish

Fed up waiting for Freeview HD equipment to reach the shops, I thought I'd try this. As a complete satellite newbie, here are my experiences with installing it yesterday.
Dish took about an hour to assemble. Diagrams could be clearer.

The supplied mast is too short for me as I have no SE elevation on my house and the dish needs to be almost at 90 degrees to a SW-facing wall. Until I get a longer mast, it's sitting on the ground. The bracket's not much good for that either as the supports seem too short when the mast is level (diagram seems to show them longer than the mast). Eventually, I got everything screwed down, level and stable.

The signal level indicator shows 99% no matter what you point it at. Is it just measuring noise?
The satellites are exactly where Dishpointer said they were, so azimuth setting was easy enough, but I couldn't get the elevation right (should be 20.8 degrees). By accident, I let the dish slip while adjusting and the quality bars went green, up to 60%, so the only dish elevation that works seems to be slightly negative i.e. it's pointing at the ground! Reflections? Or have I cocked up the assembly?

The pre-programmed box seems to do all it should, except the manual says the audio output is optical and the connector is coax (RCA). Many of the pre-set channels are not present, so maybe a re-scan is needed (or would the upgrade have a more up-to-date list?) PVR function is a bonus - I'm not too worried about possible bugs, since all PVRs have these!

Although I'm pleased with the results so far, I can't help feeling my dish assembly has gone a bit wrong, even though it looks like the pictures. The dish instructions were OK, but I'm not completely sure about the LNB. Is it possible to get a satisfactory signal with a misaligned dish/LNB?
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